Mar

4

Yes, The Alternative is Democratic Socialism

by Scott Tucker

Even if we take class divisions for granted (as mainstream economists do), then the real picture of material inequality in the United States is staggering. And it has grown much worse in recent decades. Watch the short video below to get a clear picture of just how much wealth the upper 1 percent owns in the United States. By the way, even that 1 percent might be broken out into subcategories, since the upper tenth fraction of that upper 1 percent also has a steeper increase in total wealth.

Watch: The Staggering Extent of Wealth Inequality of America

At a recent meeting of the Socialist Party, I showed an old fashioned fold out printed graph of wealth distribution in the United States in the late 1970s. The middle class was already shrinking fast in those years. In the decades since, class divisions have only deepened at an ever faster rate. The working class has been pauperized, the middle class has been proletarianized, and the ruling class has polarized into a gold-plated gated community.

If we take capitalism for granted as the baseline of the economy (as the economist narrating the video below certainly does), then there is still a divorce between public perception of our class divisions and the brute reality.
 
Capitalism may be construed “ideally” as a pyramid with a wide working class base in the lower fifth (or twenty percent of total population), a solid middle three-fifths of middle class citizens (or sixty percent of the population), and an upper fifth of the rich (again, twenty percent of population). Each fifth of the population would narrow smoothly upwards to the next higher level of income. Only the very capstone of such a pyramid (the upper fifth of the upper fifth of the population, let us say) would include the richest of the rich.

But that ideal was far removed from the real picture of our economy even by the year 1975. Already the category of the “working poor” and of the unemployed was swelling out of proportion at the base, the middle class was shrinking in the central layers of the class pyramid, and the richest of the rich were skyrocketing into the stratosphere with rapidly accumulating capital. In other words, the “ideal” pyramid of class division looked more like a pancake of social distress at the base, a narrowing middle class tightening the belt in the middle, and a space needle of the ruling class projecting beyond the moon toward Mars.

Democratic socialists favor the extension of democracy into the realm of the economy. And we do not take the recurrent cycles of capitalist boom and bust for granted, accompanied by erosion of civil liberties at home and by imperial adventures abroad. When you watch the video, you will notice that socialism is implicitly removed from the realm of possibility. Only the reform of existing class divisions is marked as the outer limits of human hope.

Nevertheless, watch the video because it is a graphic explanation of the difference between public perception of capitalism, and the present reality of class divisions.

Solidarity,
Scott Tucker

Feb

19

Water Democracy and the Politics of Desalination

By Billy Wharton

Water politics may be the next big thing on the political landscape of the United States.  Questions over who has access to water, who profits from the distribution of water and who gets cut out of the water equation are emerging all over the country.  The universal notion of free accessible drinking water for all is rapidly becoming a thing of the past, trodden on by private water corporations, sold off by bankrupt municipalities and polluted by energy corporations grand claims of "energy independence."  Water politics are about more than just what comes out of the tap.  They are about who gets to use fresh water, what they get to do with it and, even as the article below explains, who gets to make it.  Water may be the most simple, most fundamental element of life for all beings, but it it is increasingly becoming entangled in the politics of 21st century capitalism.

To start, I would recommend a look at the principles of Water Democracy by Vandana Shiva.  They provide an excellent baseline from which to measure the current state of water politics.  Shiva's ideas come out of the anti-Globalization fightbacks of the 1990s and stand as an ideal of how we might remake the relationship between humanity and water with an eye toward regaining equilibrium by removing water from the status of a commodity.

The most recent attempt to by-pass the crisis of fresh water in capitalism relies on a combination of childhood naivete and advanced science. Why don't we just use the ocean water?  Science has provided an answer to this through the process of reverse osmosis.  Water is run through a series of filters which serve to desalinate (take out the salt) by removing microorganisms and sedimentation.  The result of the process is clean fresh drinking water.

An easy solution, right?  Like any attempt by humans to insert themselves into a natural process, there are unintended bad outcomes.  Once the ocean water is pumped into the desalination plant the natural composition of the water is transformed during each stage of processing, making it less and less organic. Of the 300 million gallons of sea water pulled into the plant each day, only 100 gallons makes it to the desalination process and then only half of that becomes fresh water.  The rest is left as a lifeless muck - remember the process kills the micro-organisms in the water - that is two times saltier than ocean water.  This waste water then has to be rehabilitated before it is discharged into the sea.

No easy solutions offered by desalination, but an awful lot of big capital is tied up in plant construction. Poseidon Resources, the operator of the new desalinization plant in San Diego has all the trappings of green capitalism.  They put forward claims of "environmental stewardship" while attempting to balance maximizing efficiency with enhanced compliance.  This pitch earned the privately held company a contract to finance the $922 million plant that is expected to generate between $3 and $4 billion a year in revenue from water contracts.  Going green means serious profits for Poseidon despite the complicated environmental impact desalination brings with it.

Not surprisingly, Poseidon has also begun to engage with national politics through its lobbying arm which has sought to influence green capitalist legislation in Washington.  One key bill was the 2005 Clean Water Investment and Infrastructure Security Act which sought to lift the cap on tax exempt bonds issued for private investments in water and sewage facilities.  Poseidon executives have also made initial contributions to the newly formed Reclaim America PAC which was established by Florida Republican Marco Rubio in 2012.  This is no shining progressive venture.  Poseidon is straight capitalist enterprise.

As the struggles over water intensify, it is important to be able to see the differences between efforts to capitalize on the profits offered by the environmental crisis and efforts to strike out for a new equilibrium between nature and humanity.  Such differences make work by activists such as Shiva critical since they provide a theoretical guide from which delineate between strategies that offer long term sustainability and those that provide short term fixes that may do more harm than good.  Scratch beneath the surface of the short term fixes and you are sure to find a profit motive.  Examine water democracy more closely and see a hope for the survival of our species and the planet that hosts us.

(Republished from http://counterheg.blogspot.com/)

Green Shoots of Red Electoralism 
(from SP-USA's publication socialistwebzine.blogspot.com)

NOV

1

Hidden beneath the public relations concocted roar and corporate funded thunder of the Obama and Romney campaigns were the little people.  This election cycle, more than just a few voters decided to strike out and make a bold statement about what they want for their future. They decided to vote Socialist. A few thousand sought out our Presidential ticket of Stewart Alexander and Alex Mendoza, and many others focused their support on local efforts. This time, doing so wasn’t just a way to register a vague protest against the system.  It got someone elected.

By Billy Wharton

The current batch of socialist electoral campaigns was built on other recent campaigning that brought a more serious edge to efforts to reach voters.  The campaigns of DanLaBotz for US Senate in Ohio and Brandon Collins for City Council in Charlottesville, Virginia both garnered significant media attention and had features of full-fledged attempts at running for office. Both candidates effectively used their scarce resources in outreach efforts that included face-to-face campaigning and creative virtual efforts via free platforms such as YouTube.  The pair has certainly paved a way for others.

What is most remarkable about the 2012 socialist candidates is the not the overall vote total, but the sheer number of people willing to present themselves as candidates.  In past years, our party has struggled to identify candidates.  Being a socialist was a quiet thing – an identity you were proud of but only selectively revealed.  A combination of the 2008 economic crisis, the previously mentioned electoral efforts and the political space created by both the radicalism of Occupy Wall Street and the drift of the Democratic Party far to the right have made being a socialist a very public position to promote.

Pat Noble, a member from New Jersey, was the most successful in doing so.  Noble gained 1,033 votes and was elected to the Red Bank Regional High School Board of Education.  He was joined on the Socialist ticket in the hurricane-ravaged state by Greg Pason, who contested for a seat in the US Senate.  With the support of so many voters in the area, Noble will now have to take the next step in Socialist electoralism – moving from running an opposition campaign to creating concrete policies that exhibit socialist values.

This exciting development was paralleled by a plucky Michigan State Board of Education campaign waged by another Socialist, DwainReynolds.  Reynolds has orchestrated a number of these campaigns in the past.  He has created a dynamic strategy that targets the youth vote and seeks out a coalition with the Green Party.  This time, he received an impressive 66,021 votes.  His efforts offer lessons about the need to build broader coalitions and tap into rising dissent among young voters.

Such tactical electoral coalitions continue to be a staple of Red Electoralism.  In Texas, Angela Sarlay and the national Vice-Presidential candidate Alex Mendoza teamed with the Green Party of Texas to present their campaigns.  Doing so allowed the pair to gain ballot access and present “watermelon” politics – green on the outside, red on the inside.  This is a critical combination since the Socialist critique of the political economy needs the environmental critique of the Greens and vice-versa.

Sarlay’s campaign is of particular note, since it linked up with another waged by SP-USA member John Strinka in Indiana.  Both contested elections as the only candidates running against a far-right Republican candidate.  In both cases, the Democrats had totally abandoned local voters.  Absent the socialists, the far-right agenda would have gone totally unopposed.  Sarlay received 6,739 votes and Strinka 2,862.

There were others.  People like Ron Haldeman who ran for State Senate in Indiana and received 750 votes.  Troy Thompson who ran to become mayor of Floodwood, Minnesota. Mal Herbert, Jane Newton, Jerry Levy and Peter Diamondstone in Vermont who ran on the Liberty Union Party line with Herbert picking up an impressive 25,749 votes. John Longhurst in Michigan and Jeff Peres in New York City also ran on the Green Party line as socialists.  All told, Socialist Party USA candidates, including our presidential candidate Stewart Alexander, received 123,393 votes.

Local campaigning is no easy gig.  Funds are scarce as are, often times, supporters. Candidates can often feel isolated – like a modern day Don Quixote outgunned and running down capitalist windmills.  Yet, it is through stepping back and looking at things through the lens of a national effort that people can see the vitally important impact that can be made through running electoral campaigns as socialists.

Red electoralism provides voters with choices – an essential component of any system that seeks to portray itself as democratic.  Deeper than that, socialist candidates offer poor and working class people a vision of themselves as candidates.  We are not professional candidates.  We have no handlers, no public relations consultants and no corporate funders who will pull our strings after the election.  We offer independent fresh voices for equality for all through our demands of jobs, peace and freedom.

In the coming years, especially as the efforts by the Democrats and Republicans to impose austerity develop, electoral campaigns will offer fertile ground to present a fresh vision of democratic socialism for the 21st century.  Independent electoral action can become one of the ways in which poor and working class people fight back and carve out new political possibilities for themselves and their communities. 

               

***

Billy Wharton is a writer, activist and co-chair of the Socialist Party USA. His articles have appeared in the Washington Post, the NYC Indypendent, Spectrezine and the Monthly Review Zine. He can be reached at whartonbilly[at]gmail[dot]com. 

Thoughts on the election from our National Co-Chair Billy Wharton:
Obama Re-elected - The Fightback Begins

Tonight, Barack Obama was declared the winner of the U.S. Presidential election. Obama ran a centrist, lackluster campaign that was fueled by an avalanche of campaign donations from corporate America.  The losers were poor and working class people all over the country.

By Billy Wharton

Although, Mitt Romney was the other corporate funded candidate in the race, it will be regular Americans who will have to live with repercussions of a second Obama presidency.  Over the next four years, the administration will continue to extend the damage it has initiated since 2008.

On the healthcare front, four more years of Obama will mean that the terms of his Obamacare legislation will be frozen into place.  The possibility of re-initiating grassroots campaigning for single-payer healthcare will be mostly foreclosed until the causalities of this new system emerge en masse.  Obama made sure to protect the pharmaceutical companies and further entrench private health insurers into the healthcare system. No wonder then that a major healthcare company such as Kaiser Permanente lavished more than $500,000 on the Obama campaign while ignoring Romney. Private healthcare companies were the real winners in the first Obama presidency and they will certainly consolidate these gains in the next four years.  Poor and working class Americans will pay the price for this.

And the same will be true as the hysteria about the "fiscal cliff" gets ramped up.  This discussion will be the pretext for bringing the kinds of harsh austerity measures currently being enacted in Europe across the Atlantic to America.  The Obama administration has already begun negotiations with Republican members of Congress for what they are calling a "compromise budget."  The compromise will entail cutting social programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and social security in return for slightly higher taxation on the rich.  Such cuts will bring the federal government in line with state and local governments who have been engaged harsh budget cuts for the past four years.  What once were called the "third rail" programs of American politics - Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security - will instantly be converted into a target for an Obama administration intent on slashing the federal budget.

A second Obama term will also mean more of the same for foreign policy. Far from advancing a peace agenda, the Obama administration had intensified aspects of the military aggression in the Middle East initiated by George W. Bush and has, in some cases, accelerated the erosion of civil rights.  The two symbols of this militaristic approach are the homicidal drone bombing campaign that Obama has personally overseen and Private Bradley Manning who currently sits in a military detention facility.  The drones demonstrate that even if Obama slightly reduces the military budget, he will remain committed to using the military industrial complex as a tool to enforce American global interests even if this violates international human rights.  Manning is Obama’s prisoner - a brave whistle blower who refused to comply with criminal military aggression.  He stands as a permanent symbol of Obama’s war on civil rights and his case should be a point of struggle for left-wing activists.

Finally, both Obama and Romney have almost entirely disregarded issues related to climate change.  Obama's administration has the advantage of actually recognizing that climate change exists.  Yet, this has meant little in regards to either pro-environment legislation or  even a shift to renewable energy sources. Obama's environmental bankruptcy has been on vivid display during the periodic environmental disasters.  He was asleep at the wheel during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, coddling the multinational corporate offenders at BP as they foot dragged through a clean up.  More recently, he was purely reactive during Hurricane Sandy, offering consoling words, but nothing in the way of a strategic plan of action to ensure safety today and environmental balance in the future.  Four more years of Obama will bring us no closer to this vision that lies at the heart of Eco-socialism.

Not surprisingly, the challenge faced by regular people all over the country will be the same with a second Obama administration as it would be with a new Romney regime.  We must build the capacity to fiercely resist the austerity policies that are sure to be imposed on us.  No fiscal cliff, grand compromise or economic common sense should be allowed to be used as a justification for these cuts.  Resist, resist, resist should be the clarion call of the next four years.

Throughout this process, democratic socialism will remain a viable alternative to the politics of austerity. Socialism’s critique of capitalism and counterposing of the global commons to American hegemony offer a vision of a different future - one in which the great wealth of the world is put to work to make life better for everyone, one in which the people of America are reconnected to the world by bonds of solidarity and one in which humanity regains equilibrium with the natural world.  This is what we continue to fight for -  a world based on the socialist values of solidarity, compassion and justice.

***
Billy Wharton is a writer, activist and co-chair of the Socialist Party USA. His articles have appeared in the Washington Post, the NYC Indypendent, Spectrezine and the Monthly Review Zine. He can be reached at whartonbilly[at]gmail[dot]com.

Join the rally this Saturday in support of Chavis Carter's family:

http://www.tsdmemphis.com/index.php/greater-metro/8377-prayer-vigil-monday-for-teen-shot-while-handcuffed

" On July 9, 2012 tenants and supports held a rally to demand action from the landlord as well as from the City of New York. Tenants met with local assemblyman Felix Ortiz to demand that city and state agencies take action against their landlord and to respond immediately to the unsafe living conditions in their buildings."
http://socialistwebzine.blogspot.com/2012/07/brooklyn-tenants-strike-against.html

          
 A Different Shade of Red

    Political activists look at Memphis’ past to organize for the future of radical social change in the south.

   Television on-air commentary pundits like sports commentators often simplify politics into two opposing teams like the LA Lakers Vs. Boston Celtics, or in the political sense Red States vs. Blue States. While few would argue that by most accounts Tennessee is a “Red state”, others who want a different type of red state here in the Mid -South are making it known that the volunteer state and the south has a rich radical tradition of its own.

This year the National Organizing Conference of the Socialist Party U.S.A. will take place in Memphis, TN. this Saturday July 28th and Sunday July 29th at the Martin Luther King Jr. Labor Center at 485 Beale St.  Socialist activists of all stripes from across the country will come together to network, hold workshops, and share advice on how to continue the work for positive social change in our city, our country and our world.

Conventional wisdom would suspect that such a gathering would be held in traditional bastions of radical thought on the east and west coasts. That same conventional wisdom also supposes that the south is a conservative and evangelical block and a waste of time for those seeking Democratic Socialism. Party members locally and nationally say that  is exactly  the reason why they are coming here.

“The South is ground-zero. We have the highest concentrations of poverty, private prisons, unemployment and “food deserts”--largely vestiges of a culture and economy based on slavery. As Memphians we are tired of being of at top of to many of the wrong lists.  We want to continue the Memphis radical tradition of being a catalyzing force behind social movements. ” says Bennett Foster, Co-Chair of the Memphis Socialist Party.

That history includes Memphis’ rich and tragic legacy in the Civil Rights movement including the pivotal 1968 sanitation workers strike and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Two veteran activists from that time will each be on hand as plenary speakers at the conference.

Elmore Nickleberry is a sanitation worker, who participated in the historic 1968 strike and at the age of 85 still works for the same department today. Nickleberry who appeared in the documentary  “I Am a Man: From Memphis, a Lesson in Life”. is a charter member of  AFSCME local 1733. Sadly, last year the Memphis City Council and Mayor AC Wharton moved to cut pay, benefits and paved a way to managed competition-a road toward to privatization. This would erase many of the gains made by labor in Memphis during the Civil Rights Movement.

Coby Smith is a familiar name among community organizers and activists in Memphis. He helped to form the Black Organizing Project  -The Invaders, a militant black power group active before and after Martin Luther King’s assassination here in Memphis.They were entrenched within the black community, providing security escorts for sanitation workers fearing police harassment while leaving work. They also worked to feed poor school children while the national guard rolled in with tanks, placing the city under martial law. Coby and the Invaders were prime targets of the military and the FBI’s COINTELPRO because they were fighting for autonomy and equality for black people.

The event will also include an exclusive first look at a feature length documentary “The Invaders” with producer  J.B. Horrell. The film traces the history of this often misrepresented black power group, bringing its relevance to present day struggles in Memphis. This can be seen today as MPD’s Blue Crush and other “data based” policing strategies operate in a manner of an occupation force in low income communities of color. These communities, some of the poorest in the nation are also the targets of relentless efforts of racist gentrification, predatory lending and lingering and designed inequality in public education.

In contrast to the two major parties,each holding a posh and gala nominating convention, the Socialist Party U.S.A National Organizing Conference 2012 is focused on organizing, more specifically organizing in the South. The conference will host workshops on different facets of organizing, including Immigration Policy in the South, How to Organize a Local, GIS Mapping for Organizers, Memphis Art Brigade, and many many more.

National Organizing Conference of the Socialist Party U.S.A. TN.
Saturday July 28th and Sunday July 29th
Martin Luther King Jr. Labor Center -485 Beale St.
Please register at
http://socialistorganizing.org/registration.html

SP-NOC Plenary-With Elmore Nickleberry and Coby Smith
Saturday July 28th
2-4pm
Martin Luther King Jr. Labor Center -485 Beale St.

SP-USA Organizing Conference Plenary!

Socialists Invade Memphis!

Memphis is hosting the Socialist Party USA's Nation Organizing Conference (NOC) this year! The city will be teeming with comrades from around the country. Please join us for this radical event. The plenary speakers are two Memphis locals, long active in the struggle. Coby Smith, organizer during the Civil Rights Movement as a leader within the Black Organizing Project, the Invaders, and an activist to this day. Elmore Nickleberry is a sanitation worker who marched during the pivotal '68 strike, who still works for the sanitation department today. Some of the Workshops include - Immigration policy in the South, Memphis Art Brigade/ the blacklist, Emotional Healing for Activists, GIS mapping, Organizing a Local and more. Find all you need to know and register at www.socialistorganizing.org. We look forward to seeing you there!

May Day Actions, Cookout, and Show

This year many of our members are organizing MAY 1st actions with various groups such as the newly formed Bus Riders Union, H.O.P.E. - Homeless Organizing for Power and Equality, and Occupy Memphis. 

We'll be marching in solidarity with millions around the world, particularly immigrants, Black & Brown working class and poor, women and domestic workers, people experiencing homelessness, people with disabilities, the elderly, and other oppressed groups on this historic holiday. ¡Ya basta!

The Take Back Our City May Day Action begins with a march at 2pm at Ida B. Wells Park (formerly known as Nathan Bedford Forrest Park) and we will march down Union Ave. to Main St. to Civic Center Plaza. At 3pm outside of City Hall, there will be a theatrical "People's City Council" where numerous social justice organizations and leftist groups will come together to collectively create a "People's Agenda." Afterwards, we will march into the City Council meeting and pull comment cards to deliver the people's demands. More information on the May Day Actions can be found here!

We figure after a long day of striking, marching, and protesting, we'll need to unwind. Come celebrate the end of International Workers Day with Memphis Socialist Party! Music and cookout starts at 8pm at the Buccaneer (1368 Monroe). All proceeds from this event help fund the Socialist Party USA National Organizing Conference hosted by the MSP in Memphis this summer! More info about the fundraiser can be found here!

Happy May Day from the Memphis Socialist Party!